1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information communication terminal apparatus for selectively receiving and reproducing a plurality of pay or free information providing services (hereinafter referred to simply as “services”) via broadcasting communication media such as digital broadcasting, CATV and the Internet.
2. Description of the Related Art
With an information communication terminal apparatus for receiving a plurality of pay or free services via broadcasting communication media such as digital broadcasting, CATV and the Internet, it is possible to arbitrarily select and use services from among subscribed pay services and free services.
Herein, “service” is a concept similar to “channel” as in conventional analog broadcasting. Thus, each of “services” independently provides the user with information such as a sports program or a music program. Any user can use the free services, whereas a user needs to have a prescribed subscription with the service provider (broadcaster) in order to use a pay service.
Such an information communication terminal apparatus employs various processing functions for all received services in order to improve the usefulness of the device. These processing functions include search processing, preset processing, service information display processing, etc.
Herein, “search processing” refers to a process of retrieving receivable services. Specifically, “search processing” refers to a process of retrieving through all services until a service that is receivable with a good reception quality, and then starting receiving and reproducing the service. As described above, an “receivable service” is a free service or a subscribed pay service.
“Preset processing” refers to a process of retrieving receivable services and storing information for obtaining the services. For example, “preset processing” refers to a process of retrieving from all services to be received and assigning a plurality of preset buttons to the receivable services in the order of reception quality.
“Service information display processing” refers to a process of displaying the title and content of each service so as to inform the user of the type of the service. Specifically, it refers to a process of retrieving from all services to find receivable services and then displaying the service information thereof on the display of the terminal device.
However, in the service distributed via digital broadcasting and the Internet these days, there are a huge number of services to be provided. Therefore, the processing as described above will take a long time. When the information communication terminal apparatus is installed in an automobile, the device may be operated during the operation of the automobile. Therefore, it is preferred also for the sake of safe driving that the processing should be completed quickly.